


One of the Good Ones

by thechickadee



Category: Saturday Night Live RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-05 21:14:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13396359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thechickadee/pseuds/thechickadee
Summary: two things (of many) to know beforehand:1. “For years, Amy has called me ‘Coco’ and I have called her ‘Moses.’ These nicknames sprung from a ‘Weekend Update’ joke about a six-foot-tall camel named Moses and his tiny pony sidekick, Coco, who had escaped from a zoo in Texas. I don’t remember the joke but I do remember that we laughed every time we said ‘a six-foot-tall camel named Moses and his tiny pony sidekick, Coco." -Seth Meyers, in his chapter of "Yes Please" (By Amy P.)2. this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC2L2tKRR_8





	One of the Good Ones

It’s the most fun she’d had in over a month, probably since Tina’s birthday party. Tina’s birthday was in May, and the weather had just started tuning beautiful, and she and Tina and seven other ladies from various sections of Tina’s life went to the actual beach upstate. They spent the whole time talking about life and making fun of other beach-goers and crying and laughing and trading stories about their kids. She and Tina joked that they felt like real housewives in their big floppy hats and white wine and loosely draped cover-ups, and she had the time of her life. 

She isn’t really looking forward to this, as much as she loves Seth, but talk shows get boring after you do them every other night for months. It’s the same formula: host asks a question, she lands a joke, answers the question (or not), and sandwiches with another joke. The audience cheers, the host plays to the audience, and she just plays along until the ten minutes are up. It’s rote by now, and she’s always been one to rise to the center of attention, but even she gets tired of this. This week, she’s really in the thick of it, and honestly, she just wants to drink beer with her friends in a dimly lit apartment or drink white wine on a beach and not let any audience members see her face. 

It’s press tour season, and she never quite knows how to feel about that. She enjoys getting out at first, even though it’s not like she’s expecting  _ the House _ to be the next  _ Lincoln _ . It’s fun to do interviews with Will Ferrell; firstly, he’s hands down one of the funniest people she’s ever met, and secondly, it reminds her of the old old days where she used to hyperventilate at the chance to even sit next to him at that big writers’ table. It reminds her of how her dreams have literally come true, which is always a reminder she needs. But the interviews she does by herself, she’s pretty much over it. She’s gone back to blonde over the course of the last month, because it was nice to be a redhead for a while, and Abel loved that she matched with him instead of Archie, but she’s over the red now, too. She’s back to blonde by the time she’s booked on Late Night, but she’s ten pounds heavier than she’s ever been, and those ten pounds scream at her when she gets up in the morning. She sees her reflection when they do her makeup, and she shakes her hair out and holds her chin up high, trying to ignore her inconvenient insecurities. 

She leaves her boys with the nanny for most of her interviews when Will is busy. Her nanny is a rockstar and a badass and a saint, and Amy doesn’t know what she would do without her. But for Seth’s show, she brings them with her. He’s a dad now; his new brain is programmed to love children, and he’s no longer the awkward and nervous manboy who held her first newborn and confessed that he had never held a baby before in his life, and that he was scared he was going to break it. One of Amy’s favorite things now is watching old friends that are parents talk to her kids, especially old SNL or UCB friends; Maya or Tina will bend down to talk to them all mother-like, and all Amy can think is,  _ I’ve seen you fools dressed in chicken suits  and spandex at five a.m. and I have drunk-danced with you and Jon Hamm on a banquet. _ Every time Seth says anything to her kids, she just sees the skinny fresh-faced boy with dimples who once got fully naked for a commercial parody about pube shampoo, and she marvels at how this adult father with gray hairs is making her children laugh. 

 

She goes on his show to promote the movie, and she has the best time she’s had since Tina’s Real Housewives beach day. Something about Seth always gets her right to her best stuff; when she’s on other shows, she has to dig a little, fill the occasional silences, reach for connections that sound relevant; with Seth, it’s like he always wants her to have the punchline. When they do bits, he feeds in lines that are incredibly well-constructed but are also obviously assists; he constructs set-ups, and lets her do the heavy hits. She’s always trying to impress the audience, but when they’re together, it’s like he’s only trying to impress her, like her laugh is the only one that matters. And yes, she knows that it’s his job to do that now. It’s his job to make the guest stand out, to raise them up and make them funny and fun, and if anyone asks, she’ll say that he’s a generous talk show host, which is true. But the truer truth is that he’s always done this with her, whether it was for an audience of hundreds or in an otherwise empty room.

 

Their interview runs long, so long that the producers stop giving time cues altogether and start figuring out where they’ll cut back in. She laughs so hard she cries on air, more than twice, and she doesn’t care that the whole audience and whoever’s watching can see it. Her abs are sore from belly-laughing, because she certainly isn’t sore from all the sit-ups she hasn’t been doing. She’s wearing a long black dress with colorful embroidered flowers that shows exactly zero skin but also hides the extra weight, and she would usually be overthinking her wardrobe choice right about now, but instead, she’s laughing too hard about Daniel Day Lewis and chips to even breathe. 

She’s never been this hysterical on TV before, not once, and maybe it’s because she hasn’t seen Seth in a while and it feels good to be back in the city with her kids and her old friends, and maybe it’s because she forgot what it feels like to do bits with someone who was the other half of her comedic brain for the better part of a decade. Maybe it’s because laughing with Seth always makes her forget about those extra ten pounds or whatever other voices that are knocking around her head, and it feels so  _ good _ to be totally herself again for a few minutes.

So after the show, when Seth asks if she and the boys want to come over for dinner, she doesn’t hesitate. And she knows that if this were two, or three, or four years ago, she would have hesitated. 

She would have thought about bringing her boys to Seth’s apartment, she would have thought about Alexi’s face when the bits inevitably reverted to inside jokes, a face that she had caught glimpses of before but that she was pretty sure Seth didn’t notice as often as he should. She would have thought about how Abel was going through a clingy phase whenever Will wasn’t around, or she would have worried about how Archie was acting out because he didn’t like Nick at first. She would have thought about how hard it was to explain any of that to non-divorced people with no kids. She would have realized that it would entail thinking extensively about her ex-husband or ex-boyfriend or divorce or breakup, which she did enough already, and it would be in front of: her kids, the dude she used to have sex with slash best friend, his drop-dead beautiful, wonderful, skinny wife, and the same apartment in which she and Seth had engaged in the aforementioned sex, too many times to count. She would have thought about all of this in a matter of seconds, and she would have decided that it was all too much to consider going at all. 

But today is different. She hasn’t laughed like this in too long, she and Ben are probably almost broken up but she feels strangely calm about it, and if she’s correct, Alexi is visiting her parents with the baby. She’s back to blonde and the balance has been restored in the world. Everything points to clear skies, and she sits with Archie and Abel in the green room while Seth wraps up with the writers for the night. Archie is counting the pictures on the wall and Abel is playing with his toy truck on the floor, and she can center herself in this moment and almost forget that her best friend is the dude she used to have sex with, and she can almost forget that he was much more than that. 

 

It’s impossible to conceptualize that she first sat in this room almost four years ago, wishing Seth luck on his first show. It looked so different then; they had decorated it, of course, but it was barren besides a  few pictures and a vase of flowers by the mirror. It was new and empty, waiting for its walls to be colored in with hidden whispers and pre-show jitters and post-show bliss or disappointment. Over the last four years, the room has collected trinkets and left-belongings-turned gifts and actual gifts, and it has some character. Amy loves it like it’s a room in her own house; she feels like she’s seen its birth and watched it grow, and now her kids are playing in it. She knows that if Seth could hear her thoughts, she would be mercilessly ridiculed, but they both know she lives for nostalgia, and she knows he secretly loves it anyway.

Abel makes a fake explosion noise and tosses his truck onto the side table, knocking the little llama and pony figurines to the floor, and he looks back at Amy with a scared expression. He runs over and picks them up, setting them carefully back on the table before she can say a word, and she has to hold back a laugh because he’s so fucking cute with his big face and his blue overalls. But like a true and weathered mother, she says, “Thank you for picking that up, baby, but be careful, okay? Those aren’t your toys.” She can’t have her kids turning into mannerless monsters, after all.

He nods and goes back to his fake explosions, and Amy looks at the llama and pony sitting side by side. She had gotten them for Seth for that first night, for his writing desk, but when she saw the green room, she took them from next to his computer and set them up on that table where they still stood. The room needed some love, and the fact that Coco and Moses would be together in that room forever amidst the larger celebrity community made her feel some strange sort of comfort; at least the personified origins of their nicknames would always be hanging out together backstage.

 

She remembers first setting them up on the table, those two little figurines, four years ago. The llama was wooden and the tiny donkey was some sort of ceramic; they didn’t sell donkey/llama sets, apparently, so she had to improvise, which was luckily the marketable majority of her skillset. She was in there alone, since the other guest was Joe frickin’ Biden and he was off somewhere being protected by Secret Service, but she didn’t mind the moment of peace before the cameras and lights. She put them on the table next to the couch, and took a moment to smile at them, and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the big mirror. She looked fucking hot. She rarely felt that way at first glance in a mirror, in 2014 or otherwise, and the fact that she felt that way made her smile even more. She straightened the sides of her blue dress, brushed aside her blonde bangs, and checked her phone. Nick had texted her:  _ Have fun tonight babe, sorry I can’t be there; You look beautiful, as always. Love you, give my love to Seth and also tell him he still owes me 20 bucks, and if either of you really love me you won’t fucking come home without it. _

Amy cackled out loud, her chest feeling warm and full. She had really hit the jackpot with him, and even though he had stayed in L.A., they had been texting like teenagers that were forced to be apart. It was objectively nauseating and subjectively very fun, and made her feel young and hot and happy. 

Seth walked in beaming, and said, “Hi, you,” crushing her in a hug. She stepped back and held his face in her hands, like she would do in front of the audience in an hour, and she beamed right back.

“Look at you, Coco, hosting your own show like a bigshot.”

His hands landed on her waist, his thumbs stroking little circles in the fabric of her dress. “And if no one shows up, at least I have my Moses, right?”

She shook her head in disbelief that this moment was finally happening, still smiling, and her eyes felt misty, her heart full of pride and joy and something else that felt a little like the ache you get when you’re being left out, but that was silly, since she was standing right there. 

“Poehler, if you cry, I _ will _ cry. You know this.”

She shook her head rapidly and blinked. “Sorrysorrysorry, I know, I’m not crying, I already told you I’m just allergic to you, I’m sorry.”

“Asshole,” he managed through his laughter, and he pulled her into a hug again.

  
  


Archie lets out a yell, breaking Amy out of her reverie. (“Archie, give Abel back his truck, right now, or we’re going straight home.” “I don’t wanna! It’s my truck he took it!” “ARCHIE. NOW.”) Archie throws the truck on the floor in Abel’s general direction and skips back to the other side of the room with his arms crossed.  _ Crisis averted _ , Amy thinks, imagining the escalation of some of their more rowdy moments. He’s so cute when he’s angry and indignant, though, she muses, watching him sulk in the corner, his brow furrowed and nostrils flared.  _ Wonder where he gets that from _ . 

Seth comes in the door, dressed in his staple jeans and a T-shirt that she can only assume is some sort of comic book reference, and when he beams from ear to ear, she’s hit with a flash of deja vu. But this time, he has a little gray hair around the sides and his laugh lines are a little deeper, and her kids run to him before she does. Seth doles out high fives and fist bumps to the boys, and says, “Who’s ready for pizza?” and Archie and Abel scream, “MEEEEEE” as Amy cackles over them. 

It’s past eight by the time they get to his place, and she’s never been more hungry in her life. As they stand in the hallway outside his apartment, she takes Abel by the hand and watches as Seth hands Archie the key--despite her attempted non-verbal warnings--and lets him try to open the door. Archie has a thing with keys lately, a weird fascination, and Seth looks back at Amy and cracks up at her hangry face as they wait for Archie to get the door open. They can hear Frisbee’s tags jingling on the other side. 

Amy looks at Seth, who’s resting his hand on Archie’s yellow hair, and she looks at Archie, who’s opening the door of the apartment she used to come to like second nature. It all feels very full circle, like she’s missing something big, and as Archie finally gets the door open, she realizes they’ve never really hung out together, just the four of them, let alone in Seth’s apartment. Part of it is probably due to her historic refusals to consider dinner invitations to this apartment. But in the grand scheme of things, Alexi or Will or Nick or Ben has always been there, or some combination of two of those, and the boys were younger and had shorter attention spans and there was always something one of them were rushing off to afterward. 

 

 

It’s strange, being here in Seth’s apartment with nowhere else to be, and with two boys who are old enough to be somewhat aware of their surroundings. She feels that achy feeling again, and shrugs it off, refusing to get caught up in whatever’s lurking in the back of her brain; she drapes her jacket on the back of the couch, yelling at the boys to stop chasing the dog and come back to the door to take their dirty shoes off. 

Seth turns on the TV for the boys, getting engaged in a debate about what they’re going to be watching, (Seth pushes for baseball and Archie wants cartoons, while Abel seems to have no opinion) and he hands them each a slice of pizza while Amy pops into his bedroom. She knows him well enough by now that she doesn’t feel the need to ask before she breaks privacy-related boundaries, (he knew what he was signing up for on day fucking one), and she needs to wear something other than this designer dress for the next couple hours. She rummages through his T-shirts while Frisbee paws at her leg at the lack of attention, and Amy finds a T-shirt she recognizes from their SNL days. It’s gray and faded and familiar, and she buries her nose in it for a second before ditching her dress and putting it on. Frisbee walks all over her dress that’s now on the ground, distracted by all the smells, and Amy should probably care, but doesn’t in the slightest. She finds a pair of purple Northwestern sweats and pulls them on underneath, tying her hair up in a messy bun and rubbing her hands over her face. She knows she’ll have to change back into that dress to go home, but the allure of comfort far surpasses the thought of eventually getting redressed.

She pads back into the living room and pauses to take in the sight before her: the three boys on the couch, Seth in between her sons, actually explaining to an eight year-old and six year-old how baseball is more fun than whatever shit cartoon they’re currently into. He catches sight of her leaning against his door frame and stops in the middle of his sentence, eyeing her outfit, and something flickers in his eyes, something she recognizes from a long time ago, and then it’s gone, and he says, “Oh, make yourself at home, won’t you?” in the sarcastic tone she expected.

She grabs a slice and squeezes onto the couch on the other side of Abel, and gives him a kiss on top of his fire-red hair, because they’re being so manageable today and she just loves them so so much. Frisbee jumps up and curls into Archie’s side, putting her head on his knee. Seth settles on cartoons and the boys are totally engrossed, and he puts his arm across the back of the couch over Abel so that his hand tickles Amy’s shoulder. She looks at him, putting half the pizza slice in her mouth and showing him a mouth full of half-chewed food.

“That is incredibly s-e-x-y,” he says in a low voice, spelling it out emphatically.

“That spells sexy,” chirps Archie from Seth’s other side, still fixed on the TV, and Amy chokes on her pizza. “Good for you, buddy,” she says, holding back her laughter, “you’re really good at spelling.”

She mouths to Seth, ‘He doesn’t know what it means,’ shaking her head and laughing silently. Seth makes a thanking gesture to the heavens, and ruffles Archie’s hair, his hand still tickling Amy’s shoulder. 

 

They finish the cartoon around nine, and Abel has fallen asleep on her lap, snoring lightly. She smiles down at him, and then whispers to Seth, “is he asleep?” Seth peeks gently to his left and all Amy can see is a tuft of blonde hair against his side, and he looks back at her and nods. She smiles and then sighs, because usually this is when she has to get up and say something adult-y, like “Well, we should be going now,” or “Well, they’ve had a long day,” or “It was so great to catch up, let’s do this again sometime.” She’s searching for the right lead-out in her head, when Seth taps her shoulder to get her attention, and he whispers, “You wanna just put them to sleep in the baby’s room? I have some blankets and pillows and then you guys can stay as long as you want.”

Amy wants to melt in relief. She doesn’t want to put her dress back on and carry a heavy sleepy boy while dragging another behind her in muggy June weather to a dark, empty apartment across town. She wants to stay here in this home with Seth and she wants to stay in his comfy, worn clothes, and she feels elated that she has such an easy decision to make. Her eyes light up and she nods, and they get up gently, each picking up a sleeping kid, Frisbee scattering down to her dog bed. They carry the boys to Ashe’s room, and Amy can’t help but smile at the fact that there is a crib in Seth’s apartment. It still blows her mind. She didn’t even consider letting the boys just go to sleep until he suggested it, and as Seth runs to get pillows, she realizes that he’s probably lonely with Alexi and Ashe gone for the last few days. He doesn’t want a dark, empty apartment either. She lays Abel down next to Archie on the blanket lining the floor, and she laughs to herself; still, after all these years in a context unlike any other, she and Seth are somehow still two halves of the same brain. 

Seth comes back with the pillows and his foot hits the door in the dark, startling Abel awake, and Seth hops around for a second with pain etched across his face. Amy cracks up and tries not to make a sound, retrieving the fallen pillows and arranging them around the boys as best she can without waking Archie. Abel tugs on her T-shirt and whispers, “Mama, scared,” and she wraps him up in a big hug, placing a kiss on his forehead. “Shhhhh, it’s okay, baby, I’m right here, okay?”

Abel scoots closer to Archie and nods, and Seth kneels down and whispers something in his ear. Abel stares at him with wide eyes, then turns over and closes his eyes. Amy looks at Seth quizzically, and he just grins and sits down across from her, each of them rubbing the back of one kid until their breathing slows down and it’s clear they’re knocked out. Then, just when they’re starting to make their careful exit, somebody farts, and Seth and Amy clap hands over their mouths as they exit the room as fast as humanly possible without making a sound; once the door is shut, they keel over in fits of laughter, Amy laying down on the floor.

“It was Abel,” she gasps, “That kid is gassier than anyone I’ve ever met.”

Seth wipes tears from his eyes, helping her up from the floor and pulling her to the couch, where they collapse with a sigh. 

“What did you say to him to get him to go back to sleep?” she asks, still curious.

“Oh, I told him how Swift only passed his pilot test because he went to sleep on time.”

Amy looks at him like he’s speaking another language. “Who the fuck is  _ Swift, _ and what does any of that mean?”

“Are you kidding?” says Seth, incredulous. “Did you not watch any of that cartoon? We just sat through a show called ‘Top Wing’ for over  _ thirty minutes _ ; what were you doing?”

Amy is back into fits of laughter, because she really hadn’t watched any of it, she had been deep in thought about the night and the past and the present and the future, as always. There honestly could have been porn on the TV and she wouldn’t have noticed.

“Oh that’s right,” says Seth, through her laughter, “you were too busy raiding my closet without my consent.”

“First of all,” says Amy, wiping her eyes, “Good work, dude.” She holds up her hand for a high-five and he connects. “It usually takes me twice that to get them to bed, so thank you.”

He grins. “Well, Ashe has not yet learned how to actually  _ sleep _ , so this was refreshing.” She laughs, grateful for the hundredth time that her boys didn’t inherit her insomnia, and Seth adds, “But thank you, for realsies, because I’m a big baby and I don’t like my apartment when it’s empty,” (Amy smiles to herself) “ _ And _ I never get to see you anymore, so...what I’m really trying to say is that you fell for my kidnapping trap and now none of you can ever leave.” 

She grabs his hand and squeezes, just looking at him for a moment and feeling the warmth of his fingers in hers. She thinks that it’s crazy how you can go so long without realizing how much you missed something until you’re living it again, like sitting here on Seth’s couch and feeling of his hand in hers. She hadn’t pined for this at all, she had been perfectly happy, and now, here she is, remembering that no matter how much time and space passes, there’s nothing else quite like this. It’s like fifteen years of love and childhood and mistakes are bundled up in one person, in one place. He’s like a living reminder of who she really is beneath all the anxiety and heartbreak; he grew up right there next to her. He  _ knows _ her. 

Seth rubs circles on the back of her hand. It’s so oddly comfortable, like they do this every day. She almost forgets that she doesn’t even live in this fucking state, and that this is only the third time she’s seen him this year so far. She’s holding Seth’s hand, wearing Seth’s clothes, and her babies are asleep in the next room, and they all ate dinner and watched TV and did bedtime, and she finds herself wondering what planet she’s landed on. It’s such a familiar routine with such a disorienting twist. The man in this scene has never been Seth; it has been Will, then Nick, then Ben, and they would do this same thing and sit on the couch afterward and Amy would hold his hand, whoever he was at the time, and he would look at her lovingly and kiss her. But that role has never been filled with Seth, and she suddenly feels like she’s been playing a weird game of house for the last few hours. 

But there’s another feeling, that achy chest, a feeling that she couldn’t name until this moment, but he’s looking at her like he used to look at her before they decided they had to stop looking at each other like that, and she can name the feeling now. It’s the clear-as-day realization that she  _ wants _ to do this every day, the nagging sense that this is somehow a snapshot of a version of her life she missed out on. It’s the feeling of being in something that finally isn’t missing any parts, then the immediate, huge and crashing awareness that this is going to last only a few more hours.

 

She still hasn’t stopped looking at him, and the length of the silence has passed into what she used to call dangerously transparent territory. Then, she swallows and replies, “That’s sweet, but I saw right through your plan,” and she grins, “and  _ you _ fell for  _ my _ kidnapping trap of your clothes first, I mean, what can I say? Some of us are always one step ahead, you know?”

He’s laughing again, yanking his hand back, and she feels a little like she could sit on this sofa and laugh with him until she just becomes a part of the furniture, just another piece of his apartment that’s always there. 

Seth gets up and walks to the fridge, and Amy closes her eyes experimentally, breathing in the smell of his apartment. It smells more like baby powder and applesauce now, when it used to smell like random cologne and Cheetos and new books. After a long time, she hears the sound of bottle caps hitting the counter, and when Seth gets back, he’s changed into blue flannel pajama pants she’s definitely seen before; he hands her a beer that looks and tastes vaguely familiar. That’s the thing about Seth, everything is so familiar, but it’s been so long since they’ve been joined at the hip (pun intended, because why not) that she can never quite place anything correctly. Being with him is like a nostalgia overload; it make her feel almost high, but there’s enough bitter in the bittersweet that it’s only almost.

He settles back down on the end of the couch, and she lays down, propping her legs up across his lap and holding the beer bottle on her stomach. He rests his bottle on her ankle where the bottom of her sweatpant leg has ridden up, and she shivers at the condensation hitting her skin. They drink in comfortable silence for a few minutes, and Seth plays with the purple fabric just above her knee.

“You know, I could have given you Alexi’s clothes to wear,” he says, “if you wanted to present yourself like a  _ lady. _ ” She sniffs out a little laugh, enjoying the feeling of his fingers dancing across her knee. 

_ I don’t think she would appreciate that,  _ she thinks to herself,  _ since you and I have fucked multiple times in this very apartment _ . But she says instead, “gendered clothing is a social construct, Seth.” She takes a swig of her beer, already feeling the effects of the miniscule amount of alcohol because of her level of exhaustion and lack of meals today. Her tolerance had totally gone to shit as soon as she turned 40. “Plus,” she adds, “Alexi is the size of maybe my pinkie finger, and I’m not trying to feel like Kiera Knightley when she falls off a cliff because her corset is too tight, okay?”

“Did you just make a Pirates of the Caribbean Reference? Seriously?” He laughs at her, and she kicks him in the thigh. 

“I am a mother, Seth; my references come directly from whatever bullshit movie my sons have recently stumbled upon. Talk to me in five years and we’ll see if you still make relevant punchlines.” 

He shakes his head and pats her thigh in feigned pity, and she adds, “also, thank you for not mentioning that my body is from an entirely different galaxy than Kiera Knightley’s body, you’re a true friend.”

“Different galaxies, huh? So which one of you is the alien?”

She rolls her eyes but laughs despite herself. “That was  _ weak _ .”

“So are your limp alien arms.”

“So is your limp alien dick, Seth Meyers.” She says it because it’s that time of the night where jokes no longer require finesse, and anything is enough to set them off.

She downs the rest of her beer while he’s still laughing, and heaves herself up to get another for each of them; she brings them back to the couch and nudges him to move his arm so she can sit against his side. “You know,” she says, handing him a bottle, “earlier today I was so tired from press and I just wanted to sit in someone’s apartment and drink beer, and here we are.”

He puts his arm around her shoulders and smiles, his dimples so deep they look drawn on. “I can make all your dreams come true,” he drawls in a voice that’s possibly meant to be some sort of southern accent but comes out sounding indiscernible and very creepy. She bursts out laughing and burrows her head into his chest, sighing and getting comfortable in her new position. 

“I was watching that interview you did yesterday,” says Seth, “and you kept doing that thing where you hold your chin up unreasonably high when you’re nervous to try and trick people.”

She can’t help but smile, because she forgot how easily he could read her, and it felt nice. “Whatever, Sherlock, at least I don’t clear a room with my incessant pen-clicking.”

They sit like that for a while, nursing their beers, her head leaning intermittently on his chest and his hand absently stroking her arm, and Seth says suddenly, “So how’s Ben?” She can’t tell if she’s imagining it, but he always seems like he’s trying too hard to sound casual when he asks about her boyfriends, and the funny thing is, he never really sounds casual enough, and it almost makes her laugh. Almost. But it’s not really “ _ ha ha _ ” funny, it’s more like “ _ fuck what the fuck does that mean and why is he asking and why does he care and why do I care that he cares fuck fuck fuck why can’t he mind his own fucking business I don’t want to do this right now _ .”

“Good,” she says, but she knows he deserves a little bit more, so she bites the bullet. “I don’t know, though. He’s not great with the distance, and I think he’s sort of getting to his wit’s end with the scheduling issues.”

“Fair,” says Seth, playing with her hair with his free hand. “Are you going to talk to him about it? Figure it out?”

Amy sighs, rubbing at the beer label. “I don’t know, does it make me a terrible person if I don’t really want to? It’s not like I  _ want _ to break up, but this isn’t a part of my life that’s about to change, and I’ve done this all before, and I don’t want to put in the effort if he’s already tired of it.”

“That makes perfect sense to me,” says Seth, as she leans her head against him again. “That doesn’t mean it won’t suck though.”

She laughs, the sound more hollow than she intended. “You’re telling me, dude. I just put in a year of work and this man can’t handle me either. What are you gonna do, you know?” She winces at herself a little, at her thinly veiled bitterness, and knows immediately that Seth can see right through it. 

“There’s someone out there for you, Poehler,” he said, still stroking her hair. “Maybe it’s Ben and you guys will figure it out, and maybe it’s someone else. I know it’s hard to keep believing from where you’re at, but it just has to be true. You’re one of the good ones.”

She lets herself half-smile at the compliment, and then: “What if it was you?” she asks, because the two beers have gone straight to her head and she forgets how easy it is to say scary things to him. “Seth, what if you were right, what if I was just being a cowardly  _ child _ ? What if I, if we, made a mistake--”

 

His hand stops in her hair, and she can’t look at him, and she can’t finish the sentence, because after she moved to L.A. she swore she would never bring this up outside of therapy. She knows they’re both thinking of the same night, in Seth’s apartment a few weeks before she had gotten pregnant with Archie. They were in his old bed with the brown headboard and it was late on a Saturday, after a lot of partying and some slow, leisurely, alcohol-fueled sex, and they were just laying there, like they had nowhere else to be, like this was totally normal and okay. She was facing the wall, his hand draped over her hip, tracing patterns over her flat stomach, and he said, “I love you, Amy.” And she said, “Love you too, Coco,” as if she didn’t understand what he meant. He turned her over so that he was looking into her eyes, and he said again, “No, I love you, Amy. I am in love with you, and I’m more in love with you every day, and I think you love me too, and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know what to--what’s our plan, here?”

Her heart was in her mouth at the desperation in his voice and this truth bomb that had seemingly come out of nowhere, and the thing is, she already knew that. Of course she knew how he felt, she would have to be blind to miss it, and she figured he knew that too, and obviously,  _ obviously, _ she felt the same way. He was her person, with his dimples and sensitive soul and quick mouth and skinny arms, and of course she loved him. But he was too late, or too early, or too something; the timing was so off, as usual, or maybe their time was up before it had ever even started. Maybe there was no such thing as the perfect time. She and Will were trying to get pregnant, and she had built a life with him and wanted kids with him, and she wasn’t about to just walk out on her life for something that was probably just a passing feeling. Probably. That didn’t mean it didn’t suck, though.

“Oh, Coco,” she said finally, her voice full, and she put her fingertips on his cheeks, not knowing what else to say. “What are we supposed to do now?”

“Maybe we could do it, for real. Be something other than the first half of a Nicholas Sparks novel.”

The hope in his eyes was too much to handle, but underneath it, he sounded like he hadn’t even convinced himself. It wasn’t a possibility, and they both knew it. And now that they had reached this solid impossibility of a future, together, it suddenly seemed wrong to keep going. It was like they had each secretly just hoped it would work itself out, and it had suddenly become clear that it was never going to. He was still leaning over her, his elbow propped up next to her head.

Amy’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry, Seth,” she whispered, her voice rough, her hands still cradling his face.

“This is ending now, isn’t it?” He said, more like a rhetorical question, since he knew the answer as well as she did. 

She nodded anyway, and her chest lurched at the tears in his eyes as he kissed her, one last time.

He wiped at the tear on his cheek and cleared his throat. “Still best friends?” he asked, his voice sounding choked as he brushed her hair out of her eyes.

For a second, she saw the entire world that was about to end. She saw the end of the last few years, she saw the end of something big and warm and complicated and  important. Everything, all their baggage and guilt and confessions and unspoken rules and feelings just hung there, scattered in the air around them.

“Still best friends,” she said with a sad smile, “always.” And then it all dissipated, for good.

  
  


 

Seth’s hand is still stopped in her hair, and here they are, nine years later, in the same old apartment (although renovated, upgraded, repainted, and owned instead of rented). She mentally kicks herself for saying anything at all. Clearly, he didn’t think about this as often as she did, since he was happily married with a brand new baby and she was the one jumping from one failed relationship to the next. 

“Poehler,” he says finally, standing up and tugging on her hand. “Come here.”

She can’t read his voice, and his face looks soft and maybe a little sad and full of something she doesn’t recognize. For a second she thinks he’s taking her to his bedroom, and her heart jumps with something that’s either fear or want, but then he’s leading her to Ashe’s room, and he opens the door quietly, his hand still holding hers.

“Look at them,” he whispers against her hair, wrapping her in a hug from behind, and she does. Look at them. Abel has his arms around Archie, and they’re both sleeping with their mouths wide open, little snores filling the room. Archie’s mouth is smooshed against the floor and his hair is sticking up, and Abel mumbles something in his sleep. Behind them is Ashe’s crib, and her eyes get shiny again.

“I wasn’t right,” whispered Seth. “I was super wrong, because if I had been right, we wouldn’t have gotten any of  _ this _ .” 

A tear falls and she nods as they walk back out, and she’s crying for real now, because that was fucking beautiful and he just has such a way with words. She wipes at her face and places her hands on his chest. “Ughhh, I know, Seth. I know everything worked out the way it’s supposed to, I just need a reminder sometimes, so thank you.” She pauses, feeling his hands at her waist and his heartbeat under her fingertips. “And for the record,” she says, looking up at him. “I never said it, but I’m sorry. I don’t think I really thought about how what we had was unfair to you, and it was selfish, and I’m sorry. I’m really, really--”

“Poehler,” he says, and that’s the voice she can recognize, the one he uses when she’s being too regretful and too hard on her own mistakes (except that this time his eyes are a little watery, too, because he cries whenever she cries). “You loved me, too,” he says. “I think it was just as hard on you as it was on me, and let’s be honest, it’s not like I ever said anything about stopping until that night.”

“You’re right. You’re right, thanks.” 

“Anytime, dude,” he says, pecking her on the lips as is Amy’s custom with everyone, and she smiles against his lips at the stolen gesture. 

They trudge back to the couch; it’s past midnight now, and since they’re basically eighty now, they both fall asleep immediately, Amy draped on top of Seth, their legs intertwined and her face buried in his neck. She sleeps through the night.

She wakes up in the morning to Abel’s wide-awake eyes and freckled cheeks, whispering, “Mamaaaaa,” and staring sideways into her face. She usually wakes up tired and a little annoyed, but she starts laughing the second she opens her eyes. Seth is standing behind Abel, holding one cup of coffee and one of tea, and she wonders how he got off the couch without waking her. 

“God Bless your soul, Seth Meyers,” she says, sitting up and taking the tea from him. Her voice is hoarse from either too much press or too little sleep over the last week, or both. She takes a sip, burning her mouth, and moves over to the kitchen counter where Abel has cheerfully returned to his cereal. She spies half a remaining toaster waffle on Seth’s plate and snags it, taking a bite. “Where’s my other kid?” she asks with her mouth full, motioning for Abel to pick up the forty pieces of cereal he’s dropped onto the counter.

Seth leans against the counter and points towards the room as she shakes out her hair. “Still sleeping, and drooling disgustingly just like his mother.” 

“Shut up.”

“Mama, that’s not nice,” says Abel around a mouth full of Apple Jacks, sounding shocked, and Seth lets out a giggle.

“Yeah, Mama,” he says, his eyes dancing. “Take it back.”

Her shoulders shaking, Amy pinches his side, hard, out of sight from Abel, and says, “I’m so  _ sorry, _ Seth.”

He leaps out of her reach, barely saving his coffee, and shakes his head at her from across the kitchen, dimples stretching across his cheeks. 

Archie comes wandering into the room, rubbing his eyes, and Amy calls, “Good morning, sleepyhead!” She pours him a bowl of cereal next to his brother. 

“What’s your schedule like for today?” asks Seth, refilling his coffee.

“I have an Entertainment Weekly thing with Ferrell later in the day, and I have to be there at three, so I was thinking I’d take the boys home and let them wind down a little bit before then.”

Seth hands her a fresh waffle from the toaster. “Solid. I’m going in to work in a couple of hours, and then Lex and Ashe get back tonight, so I have to clean the monumental mess I’ve managed to make in this house in the last week.”

She shakes her head in fake disapproval. “Oy, some things never change, do they?”

He just looks at her chewing her waffle across from her mini-me’s, the sun filling the room, and Amy tilts her head. There’s that silence again, but he’s smiling, so she’s more amused than concerned.

“Some things never change, Moses.” 

Her heart twinges and she becomes acutely aware that they have to leave this apartment, and she feels suddenly overwhelmed by the last twelve hours. She excuses herself to get dressed, and takes a minute to breathe in Seth’s room. He comes in after her just as she’s pulling the dress up over her hips, and he shuts the door behind him. She pulls it the rest of the way on and looks at him over her shoulder. 

“Wow, the lengths people go to see me naked, it’s unbelievable.” 

He shakes his head and walks to her, zipping her dress up the back slowly. She closes her eyes and thinks,  _ when will this happen again? _ He places a kiss where her neck meets her shoulder, which is as far down as he can go in this nun dress, and she turns to face him, resting her hands on his face where they love to be. 

“I will see you soon, my friend,” she says, doing her best not to tear up, because for god’s sake, they do this too often to cry every time. He’s still wearing his pajamas and his hair is still ruffed from sleep, and she can’t see the deep laugh lines and gray hair. All she sees is her best friend, with the sparkling eyes and dimples, and she sees someone who loves her more than most. He loves her now with the experience of having  _ loved _ her, and she’s realizing it’s a very unique something that no one else can really recreate. 

“The Emmys are the day before your birthday this year,” he says, and she doesn’t know how he even remembers things like that; “and I know you’re not going, but I’ll be in L.A. and I’m going to find you and take you out, and we are going to get drunk and put the young people to shame.”

“Amen, sir,” she laughs and nods, and her hands fall to his shoulders. “You’re one of the good ones, too, Seth Meyers. You really are.”

He hugs her for more than a minute, and she thinks it’s because he doesn’t want to do this particular goodbye in front of the kids, but neither does she, so they just stand there in each other’s arms, listening to Archie and Abel’s muffled morning chatter through the bedroom door. 

And then, before she knows it, it’s time to go. He says goodbye to the boys at the door with proper hugs, and pecks her on the cheek as he hands her her jacket. 

“Don’t be a stranger, okay?” he says, even though it’s a cliche thing to say and he would be maing fun of himself if the sentiment weren’t so true; she nods, looking at him one last time before pulling her boys to the elevator and down the street. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

 

 

 

She doesn’t see him when he comes for the Emmys, because she’s shooting that day and he’s helping Colbert with his monologue. It might be the first Emmys they haven’t spent together. Over the next month or so, she gets busy with the boys’ school stuff and her new projects, and she talks to Seth every couple weeks over text, but only really talks him in November. 

 

The news about Louis breaks her, and she calls Seth the very next day while she sits in her car, waiting for the boys to get out of school.

 

“Poehler, how are you doing?” he asks immediately once he picks up.

“Seth, oh Seth. What the fuck, man? I don’t know what to do. How could I not have known?”

She hears a long sigh, but she continues, “It’s all true, I asked him and he said it’s all true, and I can’t fucking talk to him ever again, Seth, never again.” And she’s starting to cry now, rage cry and sad cry, because Louis had been her friend and he had done horrible things and she had never known about it.

“Amy, I’m so sorry,” says Seth, no doubt hearing her quiet sobs over the phone. “It’s hard because he did these horrible things, but I know he helped you when things were bad with Will, right?”

She just keeps crying. She can’t stop, and she feels like a cliche and she feels like a bad feminist and she called Seth because he always knows what to say when she feels this bad. He has a way with words, and he has a way with her.

“You know what he’s done now,” starts Seth, “and it’s terrible, but in a crazy way, I don’t think it invalidates the kindness he showed to you.” He pauses, and she takes a deep breath as he goes on. “Obviously, that kindness in no way validates his awful behavior, but...I think you can remember the things he did for you separately. Like, Louis did terrible things to women and he is now disgraced. Also, one time, Louis talked to you on the phone about divorce when you were so sad you couldn’t sleep.” 

She sniffs so he knows she’s still there but not ready to speak yet, and he gets the message and keeps going. He says, “And it doesn’t have to mean anything, but maybe the fact that those two things are both true is just the way it has to be.”

He stops, then says, “We were in  _ love _ once. You and I. And now we both have kids and whole separate lives in different places. That doesn’t have to mean anything, those two things just happen to both be true. What do you think about that?”

She sighs and wipes her puffy, red eyes. “I think, Seth, that you are really smart, and that all sounds like some enlightened buddhist shit that I have not yet reached, but I can agree just this once that you are right.”

“Yeah, doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck, though,” he adds, and she gives the weak laugh he was aiming for.

 

She looks out the window and spots her boys running wildly toward the car, and she smiles, turning back to her phone: “I’m genuinely asking here: we’re two of the good ones, right, Coco?”

“Damn straight.” He shoots back. “Give my love to the little monsters.”

“Give my love to the alien baby and the pregnant wife’s cervix.”

He laughs, his voice clear and familiar, and she savors the sound as Archie and Abel start yanking at the car doors.

“Love you, Seth.”

“Love you too, Poehler.”

 

_ End. _

  
  
  
  



End file.
